On Thu, Sep 18, 2008 at 12:01 PM, <WJhonson(a)aol.com> wrote:
The way you've worded this, does not make it clear
whether you are stating
that:
A) "The court discussed it... and in THEIR discussion mentioned 'taking
plotlines'"
or
B) "The court discussed it.. and it's my opinion that 'taking
plotlines'....
Can you clarify and if possible cite to the opinion discussion details
Sorry for that. Yes, they did discuss the point directly because it
was the key issue in the appeal.
The trial judge had found that Dan Brown did copy from the Holy Blood
and the Holy Grail (HBHG) in writing the Da Vinci Code (DVC), but that
what he copied was "at too high a level of abstraction" to constitute
protectable expression, and in any event was not a substantial part of
HBHG. The main issue in the appeal was whether the trial judge had
adopted the correct tests to reach this conclusion.
All of the judges confirmed the trial judge's decision that what was
copied was too highly abstracted from HBHG. Probably the clearest
statement of this is from Mummery LJ at paragraph 154:
"The position is that the individual elements of the Central Theme
Points distilled from HBHG in the VSS are not of a sufficiently
developed character to constitute a substantial part of HBHG. In the
words of the judge they are 'too generalised' to be a substantial part
of HBHG. They are an assortment of items of historical fact and
information, virtual history, events, incidents, theories, arguments
and propositions. They do not contain detailed similarities of
language or 'architectural' similarities in the detailed treatment or
development of the collection or arrangement of incidents, situations,
characters and narrative, such as is normally found in cases of
infringement of literary or dramatic copyright."
--
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain(a)gmail.com